


Back Into Hell

by bluetoast



Category: Pendragon - D. J. MacHale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:06:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1322629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluetoast/pseuds/bluetoast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boon watches as Ravinia marches into Eelong and destroys everything Kasha, Seegen and the other Travelers worked so hard to save.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back Into Hell

Boon supposed he should have known something was wrong the moment he heard that Gunny and Spader had vanished. They weren't missing, they hadn't run away – they had simply vanished. The gars who told them this were scared – one of them spouting some kind of nonsense that they had been gone to the 'final home' which was some crazy idea that the gars had picked up from who knows where – the idea being that when you died, there was another home you went to – a place where there was no sorrow, no hunger, no pain – no loss – a perfect place. Klees had no such notion of a 'final home' when klees died, if they were deemed worthy, they went to the Great Hall where all the true warriors, the true klees went and lived on in a second life, one of good food, good company. If you were not deemed worthy, you were reborn as a kit and started life over again – with no memory of your former life. Two days after Gunny and Spader vanished, Boon left Black Water for what would be a very, very long time.

It was five years later he returned from a forage to find the city of Leeandra in a fervor of noise. The sheer excitement in the city was more than he could comprehend – but word reached him and his fellow foragers before they could even think to ask. Timber was back. Boon knew that only meant one thing – Eelong, after so many years of being out of the war against Saint Dane, was back in play. He returned home that night to sit and stare for hours at his Acolyte ring – willing the cracked stone to seal itself so he could send a message to someone – _anyone_ – but the gray stone remained still and broken through the night. He had not spoken to anyone from Black Water in so long – he assumed that Spader and Gunny had come back from wherever they gone – or else in hiding among the gars. He assumed that their prolonged absence was because they had found another flume and had gone to their homes. 

Exactly six months after Timber's return he was gone again. Two days later, while out on a forage, a great flash of light filled the jungle, blinding both the klees and the gars in the field. When they could see again, rather than investigate, they all headed back to Leeandra – as they drove back with the cart half full, Boon saw flashes of tangs in the trees beyond – but they were ignoring the group completely – they were all running in the direction they were coming from. Boon took it into his mind to forget the whole affair.

One year later, the conclave of Ravinia in the city of Leeandra was finished. That's when things _really_ started to change. Boon had watched technology change in the city around him – the appearance of strange mechanical klees called dados were just one of them. The night before the final vote on Edict forty-six, the one that would make gars officially food – he and several other klees smuggled a handful of young gars, the oldest one being the same age as Boon – out of the city. The klee who took them to Black Water was killed by a tang on his way home. Or so they all assumed – he was never seen again. Two days later, Boon was ordered to gather up his belongings and move to the outskirts of the city. As a gar sympathizer, his slightly elevated status as a forager and a champion whippen player was washed away in one fell swoop. What he was able to gather in the short time he was given were several changes of clothes, two tang knives, Seegen's journals, his floor pallet and a cooking pot full of a day's worth of food. As the only single klee who'd been ordered to move, he took the smallest of the empty homes – letting the families have the larger compartments. When he walked into the hut the first thing he saw was a large red stain smeared across the floor. A gar had lived here – a gar who, by now, was dead. The place had been ransacked for any sort of valuables – bowls and cups were shattered everywhere on the floor as well. He spent the first night in his new home cleaning.

Things grew even worse as time went by. He and his fellow outskirt dwelling klees were put into service doing the work gars had done – Boon worked at cleaning out pipes filled with waste – since the gar who'd known how to keep the running water system working had been turned into dinner some time ago. The erratic work schedules of the klees in his level were constantly rotating – so that they were never all home at the same time – to prevent rebellion, they were told. The second worst thing after the murder of the gars was when he saw the dados dragging klees who were either old, crippled, or otherwise maimed into forager carts. New bait for the tangs. Klees who were sharing the 'benefits' of Ravinia were all marked with a star tattoo on their left front paw. The number seemed to be growing steadily. After long days or nights of working, Boon curled up on his pallet, his sleep short and fitful. 

His old friends wouldn't even look at him anymore... Boon had never felt so alone in his life. He spent many nights thinking how glad he was that Kasha was not here to see the nightmare their home had become. He would think of Mark and Courtney – and hope that this nightmare wasn't happening on their territory. Of course, he would also think of Spader and Gunny and wonder if they were safe – if they had indeed gone to that 'final home' that gars had whispered about. That place was starting to sound better and better all the time. Maybe it did exist... he certainly couldn't prove that it didn't. He started to dream about what a perfect place would be like... and in his mind, he always saw a forest unlike any he'd ever seen on Eelong – a place were the trees towered into the sky and there were no tangs. There was no Ravinia – no mechanical klees that reminded him of corpses and what gars there were lived with the klees in harmony.

That was perfection – not the filth that the conclave spewed. 

So it went on for Boon – day in, day out – with nothing but hope to go on. Beyond the outskirts a new structure was being built – klees were calling it a compound. He didn't need to be told what it was for – he'd seen the walls. The klees who were still deemed unworthy would be sent there... something told him he'd have to lead the march in to that place. He'd burned Seegen's journals what seemed like years ago – after he'd committed every word to memory. He also figured the menial tasks he and the other outcasts performed would be very shortly performed by dados instead. He'd seen the army that was working on the whippen fields. They'd be marched into the compound and left to fend for themselves. Boon didn't want to know what kind of hell that would be. There was also talk of an assault on Black Water. Things were falling apart faster and faster with each passing year.

After a long afternoon of cleaning the pipe outside the Ravinian school for very young klees – most of it spent with the kits throwing things at him, he found two figures in his home – one klee and one gar.   
“Do not move!” He knew his voice was harsh. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my home with that gar?” This was not good... not good for him, not good for the gar, the klee or anyone on the outskirts. The klee was utterly relaxed, further unnerving him. He could tell from the back that the gar was a male and the klee was a female – other than that... and then the klee spoke, and hope filled him for the first time.

“Is that anyway to welcome back a tired Traveler?”

 _“Kasha?”_ This could not be real.

“Hello, Boon.” The klee turned around and confirmed the truth. 

For the first time in twelve years Boon was looking into the face of his very best friend in all of Halla. If Kasha was back – then, as he'd once heard Spader say – it was time to get back into the game. The Travelers and other Acolytes were the only pack he really needed.


End file.
